fiefoe

One becomes rather tongue-tied reading Oscar Wilde. 'Perverse' has rarely (never, even?) been quite so delightful a word.

I don't complain. If Nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture.
What is a fine lie? Simply that which is its own evidence.
He has not even the courage of other people's ideas, but insists on going directly to life for everything.
There is such a thing as robbing a story of its reality by trying to make it true.
Mr. James Payn is an adept in the art of concealing what is not worth finding.
The only thing that can be said about them is that they find life crude, and leave it raw.
If a novelist is base enough to go to life for his personages he should at least pretend that they are creations, and not boast of them as copies. The justification of a character in a novel is not that other persons are what they are, but that the author is what he is.
Sooner or later one comes to that dreadful universal thing called human nature.
(George Meredith) is a child of realism who is not on speaking terms with his father. ... His style would be quite sufficient of itself to keep life at a respectful distance.

'The Decay of Lying', part 1